Music of Ghosts (14 page)

Nineteen

Seventy miles west of
Nashville, Tennessee, Jonathan had already grown sick of the trip. All the way through the mountains he'd tried to come up with an answer for the accusation Lily had hurled at Mary, but he couldn't think of any good way to explain Ruth Moon's death. As they sped into a relentless Southern sun, he silently tried out several approaches. Finally, as they crossed the long span of the Tennessee River, he decided to just tell her, flat-out.

“There's something you need to know, Lily,” he said, his voice sounding more severe than he'd intended.

“What?” She looked up from her Kindle, both sullen and defensive. She had not said more than ten words since they'd left Carolina.

“Mary did not kill your mother.”

She returned her gaze to the e-reader. “That's not what Grandpa Moon says.”

“Fred Moon is wrong,” he said, refusing to give the bastard any familial title. “Fred Moon is a liar.”

“But he showed me,” Lily insisted. “In the newspaper.”

He longed to pull off the road and talk to her face-to-face, but he was still on the bridge, trying to pass a semi that was doing at least eighty.

“What paper?” he asked. Ruth had died in Atlanta—of interest to no one locally. He couldn't imagine that the
Webbers Falls Gazette
had reporters across the country.

“I don't know,” said Lily. “He keeps it in his wallet. It says Mary got mad at my mother, and shot her with a gun.”

“That's not true,” Jonathan said. “Mary wasn't mad at anybody. Your mother was sick, not in her right mind.”

“That's what Grandpa said you'd say.”

“But I'm telling the truth!” Jonathan gripped the steering wheel hard, wishing it were Fred Moon's throat. “Why would I lie about something like that?”

“Grandpa says because you always loved Mary best.”

“That's not true, Lily.” Actually, that was the one thing Fred Moon had gotten right. Never had Ruth taken Mary's place in his heart. He'd met Ruth after he and Mary had parted, each deciding that they were just too different to live together. He'd never intended to do more than shoot a game of pool with Ruth in Big Meat's bar. But she was sweet and had a nice smile. The next thing he knew she'd moved in with him; the next thing after that she was pregnant with his child. Though she assured him marriage was unnecessary, he drove her to the courthouse just the same. Mary was gone, both his parents dead. He wanted to pin his name on something before he died.

“What's not true?” Lily brought him back to the present moment.

“That I didn't love your mother. I loved her a lot. She'd been through a terrible time,” he said. “She hadn't slept for days. She was scared you were dead.” He searched for a way to explain insanity to a nine-year-old.
Crazy
didn't say anything,
schizophrenia
said far too much. How about
confused
? Yes!
Confused
would work. “Sometimes when a lot of bad things happen, people get confused. Do weird things they wouldn't normally dream of doing.”

“But why did she get confused?” She looked at him, her eyes huge. “Why would she try to shoot Mary?”

He sighed. How many times, over the years had he'd asked himself that question? He'd never come up with a satisfying answer. “I don't know why, Lily. Nobody knows why. All I can tell you is that she loved you. You were the most important thing in the world to her.”

“Grandpa Moon says she wasn't confused at all. He says Mary was jealous and killed her. He said Mary might kill me someday, too.”

Jonathan took a deep breath, willing himself to remain calm. “Lily, Mary didn't kill anybody. Mary isn't
going
to kill anybody. I wouldn't live with Mary if I thought she might harm you.”

Lily sat back in her seat. Though she gazed out at the flat green acres of west Tennessee, he knew this discussion was not over. She was, in that respect, like him. She would think, then choose her words carefully, like the best-fletched arrow in a quiver. Twenty minutes later, she spoke again.

“Do you think I might get confused some day?”

Her voice was so thready that it scared him. For an instant, he wanted to weep. Lily now feared Mary far less than she feared her mother's madness.

“Absolutely not.” He reached over and gently rubbed the back of her neck. “You will never get confused like that.”

“How do you know?” Again, she turned huge eyes upon him.

“I just do. I promise that will never happen to you.”

Though he knew that wasn't nearly enough, it seemed to satisfy her, seemed to quell, for now, whatever monsters Fred Moon had put inside the child's head. She gazed out the window for a few more miles, then she switched off her Kindle and went to sleep, looking so much like Ruth Moon that he suddenly felt as if he were driving three people to Oklahoma—Lily, himself, and the ghost of a woman he'd once loved.

Drained, he sped on toward Memphis. He couldn't have imagined a month with Fred Moon would damage Lily so. “I guess I've got some explaining to do, Lily,” he whispered, looking over at her while she slept. Maybe they would stop for the night in Memphis. At a motel with a pool. They could swim, then talk, and he would tell her, for the first time, everything that had transpired that night. Though he did not have Mary's ease with words, he thought he could make Lily understand most of it. He was considering how to broach the subject when his cell phone rang. He dug down in the pocket of his jeans and flipped the thing open.

“Hello?” he answered as quietly as he could.

“Jonathan? This is Alex Carter.” Unlike the sketchy reception in the mountains, Alex's voice came over so loud that he had to move the phone away from his ear.

“Hey, Alex.”

“Where are you?” As always, Mary's best friend was direct.

“Just east of Memphis.”

“Good. I wanted to let you know that I've scheduled a mediation with the Moons. Friday, in Tahlequah.”

“Back alley or a courtroom?” Nothing would please him more than smashing Fred Moon's face into a brick wall.

“Actually, neither.” She laughed. “Just a lawyer's office.”

“Too bad,” he replied. “I could have mediated like hell in a back alley.”

“I know, but we'll have to do it this way. If we can come to terms in mediation, then we might not have to go to court at all.”

“What do you mean, terms?” he asked, immediately suspicious. He wasn't going to give Fred Moon fucking ten minutes with his child.

“Some sort of visitation agreement. I've found some skeletons in their closet that I fully intend to rattle. They may not be so keen on going to court after that.”

“So this might be over sooner?”

“Possibly,” she told him. “If this is just a nuisance suit, they'll probably fold. If they're serious, they'll bring their big issues to trial.”

He glanced over to make sure Lily was still asleep. “And their big issue would be Mary?”

“According to their complaint.”

“That part doesn't look so good, does it?” There was no need to ask, he could hear it in her voice.

“Well, they're trying to load our girl up with some baggage.”

“It's bullshit, Alex,” he said, replaying the same argument he'd just made with Lily. “Mary didn't do anything that you or I wouldn't have done.”

“I know. They're just putting the worst possible spin on it. But don't worry. We Texas gals can twirl a lasso pretty good, too.”

He looked out the window, the sun searing his eyes. “You know, I'm thinking maybe I should just turn south and head to Mexico.”

“No, Jonathan. Come to Oklahoma.”

“But I can't let—”

She interrupted him. “You're starting to break up. I'll call you back in a few minutes.”

He clicked off his phone angry all over again, hating Fred Moon and his wife, hating the day, hating himself for acting like such an asshole.

Suddenly, Lily sat up, blinking in the bright afternoon light. “Where are we?” she asked, her voice hoarse with sleep.

“Just past Jackson, Tennessee.”

“I need to pee.”

“I'll pull off at the next exit.”

A few miles later they stopped at a rest area. Jonathan waited in the lobby while Lily went to use the bathroom. Though his first impulse was to call Mary, the idea made him uncomfortable. Lily had confided her deepest concerns about Mary—for him to call her now, behind Lily's back, felt like a betrayal.
Anyway
, he told himself,
what could I say? Trip's going fine, gas is a lot cheaper in Tennessee and, oh, by the way—Lily hates your guts?

Twenty

That night Cochran stormed
out of the Justice Center by the back door. After ordering Tuffy Clark to find out who leaked the photos of Lisa Wilson, he then spent the rest of the evening going over evidence with Turpin. The two men had parted late and parted angry—Turpin insisting they had enough circumstantial evidence for an indictment, Cochran adamant that they hadn't yet looked under all the rocks. When Turpin finally retreated to the courthouse, Cochran headed out to the police parking lot where Angel, the department's unmarked Camaro, sat in one corner. They'd seized the sleek '98 black ragtop during a drug bust and turned her into their speed trap car. Though Cochran usually drove the standard Crown Vic, tonight he decided to indulge in one of the few perks of his job. He needed fresh air, speed, escape—everything that the Camaro both promised and delivered.

“Angel, I would have sold my soul for you when I was sixteen,” Cochran told the car as he fired up the five hundred horses under her hood. “Everybody would have. Hell, everybody still would.”

He lowered Angel's top, then headed up the hill, toward the courthouse. As he made a left on Keener Avenue, he noticed bright lights burning on the sixth floor.
Turpin's office
, he thought bitterly.
No doubt up there readying the charges against Stratton.
Usually, it went the opposite way, with him convincing the overly cautious Turpin that they had slam-dunk evidence against a suspect. Why Turpin's balls had turned brass now, he couldn't say, though he suspected Carlisle Wilson had something to do with it.

“Don't do it, George,” he warned, punching Angel's accelerator. “Indict Stratton now and Mary Crow will eat you alive.”

With a weary sigh, he put Turpin out of his mind and zoomed up to seventy. As Angel cruised effortlessly around the curves of Keener Avenue, a cool nighttime breeze caressed his face, carrying the croaking of tree frogs, the smell of fresh cut grass. Summer came back to him in a rush, and he thought of Ginger, and how they'd canoed down sleepy Walnut Creek, stopping for a picnic behind the fronds of a willow tree. That seemed a lifetime ago, yet it had been only last week. They'd talked little since then, and though he saw her at his daily news briefings, the ring he'd planned to put on her finger still lay in the top drawer of his dresser. As he skidded to a stop at the intersection of Keener and Golf Club Lane, he made a deal with himself. If he drove by and found Ginger's lights still on, he would stop. If they weren't, he would fly Angel down River Road and talk with her tomorrow. He turned down Golf Club Lane. Slowing to make the curve around the twelfth green, he peered into the darkness. Suddenly, he saw her cottage peeking from a rambling hedge of wild roses. To his great joy, lights glowed from her den window. Tires squealing, he pulled Angel in the driveway. As he got out of the car, he wished he'd brought that engagement ring; wished he had the nerve to ask her to marry him right now.

He walked to the back door and tapped softly. He heard footsteps, the click of a lock. The door opened and there she stood in her work-at-home outfit, one of his white oxford cloth shirts topping a pair of cut-off jeans, her flame-colored hair pinned up on her head.

She smiled. “Well, hey, sheriff.”

“Hi,” he said, his knees growing unreliable. The sight of her, the sound of her always sent a tremor through him.

Teasingly, she leaned against the doorjamb. “Is this a raid?”

“No. Just stopped by to say hello.”

“Aw.” She laughed. “I was hoping I might get frisked.”

He took her in his arms. She smelled of apples and sunlight, linen sheets dried on a clothesline. He kissed her, reached to unclasp the barrette that held her hair. She wrapped long legs around his waist as he carried her inside. He kicked the door shut as she peeled off her shirt. He kissed her neck, her breasts. She wiggled free, unbuckled his belt, pulled his trousers down past his hips. He gasped as her fingers squeezed the tight muscles of his butt, then she began to unbutton his shirt. As his clothes fell away her lips made a warm, leisurely path down his chest. She pulled him to the floor, on top of a collection of newspapers. With their mouths and tongues seeking each other hungrily, they made love until both George Turpin and Carlisle Wilson faded away, ghosts consigned to another part of his life. Time stopped as they stayed on the floor, crumpling the newspapers beneath them, lying in sweet exhaustion until Ginger finally got up and padded into the kitchen.

“What's wrong?” she asked, returning to put an icy bottle of Yuengling on his bare belly.

“Yow!” He jumped from the sudden coldness. “What do you mean?”

“Earlier, when you first knocked on the door. You looked like you could chew nails. I'm not a reporter for nothing.”

He scooted over to lean against her couch, wondering if the Fiddlesticks case had finally begun to ooze out his pores. “Just tired,” he said. “I've spent the last eight hours arguing with Turpin about the Fiddlesticks case.”

“Now there's a name I haven't heard lately,” she said. “Where's our noble DA been these last few days?”

Cochran laughed. “Mostly hiding from Carlisle Wilson. Until today, anyway.”

“What happened today?”

“Wilson paid him a visit at the courthouse. Turned Turpin into a true believer.”

She looked at him, sensing a story. “Oh, yeah?”

“The DA's on the case now, big time.”

“I'll ask for an interview tomorrow,” she nestled against him. “See what I can find out.”

He sat there on the floor, holding her. Crickets chirped, loud outside her window. In the distance he heard the quaver of a screech owl. He sipped his beer, loving the feel of her warmth. He was gazing at nothing—her darkened TV screen, the now cold fireplace—when he caught sight of her desk. The small green-shaded lamp illuminated several note pads, plus the centerfold of the
Snitch
, which dangled from the edge of the desk.

“What have you been working on?” he asked, his good mood turning sour.

“Oh, you know. My old crackpot theory that Lisa Wilson hasn't been the only girl killed up there.”

He recalled her feature in last week's paper theorizing that other young women might have been killed after visiting the Fiddlesticks cabin. Ginger had done her research, but the article only fanned the flames of controversy around that stupid cabin. “And did the
Snitch
photo prove your theory?”

“Jessica Rusk's piece?” She laughed. “Not hardly. I told you—Jessica's the queen of myth and misinformation. It did cause a pretty big stir at the grocery store, though.”

He looked at her, all business. “Do you know where this Jessica got that photo?”

“No. I'm sure it's something she had Photoshopped. Everybody at the
Snitch
is bogus.”

He frowned. “Ginger, that picture isn't a fake. That's real.”

“What?” She sat up straight, her eyes wide. “Are you serious? What happened to that girl?”

“We don't know.”

“Don't you dare leave me like that, Jerry. You must know some-
thing.”

“Off the record?” Even with her, he was still cautious.

“Yes, Sheriff Cochran,” she said, irked. “Off the damn record.”

“Those marks are all cuts, made by a less than three-inch, non-serrated curved blade. Who did it and what those figures mean, we haven't a clue.”

She reached over and grabbed the paper, squinting at the horrific image. “This is
writing
on this girl's body?”

“It's a repeating pattern of figures,” said Cochran. “Though not one computer in all of law enforcement can read it.”

“Wow.” She sat back on her heels. “I thought Jessica had faked this. I wonder if those other girls were mutilated.”

He recalled the old section-length feature on Fiddlesticks that was fast becoming her obsession. “They're probably just runaways, Ginger. Considering the number of kids who've gone up to that cabin over the years, three vanishing is not even a blip, statistically speaking.”

“I'm sure their parents would love to hear you say that.”

Cochran closed his eyes, his bones suddenly feeling heavy as lead. “Just let me clear this case first, then I'll get on those three cold ones. Wilson's already promised to roast my balls if I don't find out who killed his daughter.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Not at all.” He pulled her close. “We'd better make love quick, while I've still got the family jewels.”

He took her in his arms, needing to feel her warmth. As they embraced, his gaze fell again on the
Snitch
centerfold. Though Lisa Wilson's face and breasts and crotch had been blurred out, the image was still horrific—a young girl who'd been carved up alive. He turned and kissed Ginger's neck, from her ear lobe down to the delicate knob of her collarbone.
What if that had been her? What if someone had done that to this body, this flesh? In that instant, he forgave Carlisle Wilson everything—his cane, his bullying, his threats. You don't get over somebody doing that to someone you love. As he held her close, he grew even more convinced that Turpin was wrong. Carving that girl up hadn't been a smokescreen. Carving that girl up was the reason Lisa Wilson had been killed in the first place.